


do you love me?

by ColorInPlatinum (orphan_account)



Category: RWBY
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, More characters to be added, Sexual Abuse, Sibling Incest, Slow Burn, Trans Male Character, Underage Rape/Non-con, lots more tags to be added too, the incest is forced btw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22048537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ColorInPlatinum
Summary: one night, arthur watched as tyrian slept in his usual cot in the medbay, his bandaged chest rising and falling with his breathing. he could feel his chest pounding, faster than the heart monitor in the corner, and he sighs. what was this boy doing to him?I DO NOT CONSENT TO THE REPOSTING OF MY WORKS.
Relationships: Arthur Watts/Salem (RWBY), Tyrian Callows/Arthur Watts
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lots of headcanon-based stuff for tyrian and his backstory. technically canon-compliant too, but we'll get there. also some things to note before you get into this.
> 
> -translations for any non-english portions are gonna be at the end  
> -in my headcanon, salem sexually abused tyrian as a child and well into his adulthood. these scenes will be in this fic  
> -for the first few chapters, tyrian is referred to with she/her pronouns as he is a trans man and a portion of this story takes place before he finds this out and changes his pronouns  
> -the broken english in some parts are thanks to @stormfloret on tumblr, my best friend, who speaks mandarin way better than i ever could and helped me to make sure i wasn't accidentally being racist!  
> -YES TYRIAN AND ARTHUR HAVE A PRETTY BIG AGE GAP. yes they meet and one of them develops feelings before tyrian is an adult. no, they won't engage in anything inappropriate before then, arthur is smarter than that. NO THIS IS NOT ME TRYING TO MAKE THEIR SHIP PEDOPHILIC.

Salem strides into the castle silently. Arthur is sure that beneath her dress are heels that should click, but he’s never heard nor seen them. She seems to do nothing but glide, float along the hardwood floors and polished stone without pause. Behind her, a pillar of black sludge collapses into the ground and sizzles away into smoke and bubbling oil, before vanishing entirely. In her arms is a bundle, too oddly shaped for a supply run (not that she would ever make such a journey) and too large to be anything like an animal or a baby.

“Dare I ask?” comes Arthur’s measured greeting. The young doctor is so strangely out of place here, still growing used to life in this dark realm. His hair is slicked back, longer than he likes it, over his brow, and small rectangular glasses rest on the end of his nose, just above the moustache he so covets. He is adorned in the light blue jumpsuit he snagged as he ran from Atlas, beneath a lab coat he had to stitch together himself. Against the dark reds and purples of this limbo, he looks like a cutout from a magazine.

Salem does not stop for him as she passes by, and Arthur does not expect her to. In the years he’s been at her side, he’s commanded no more respect than a lieutenant. He walks alongside her, the heels of his polished shoes clicking with her eerie nothing. “You recall my mention of a great despair that settled in Anima, yes?” she asks.

Arthur nods. “Yes, ma’am. You found it particularly odd, if I remember correctly, as it wasn’t stationary.”

“Yes,” Salem smiles. The bundle in her arms shifts. “It roamed. It was not a village in peril as I have experienced so often. I am so happy that I chose to investigate personally.”

The blanket around whatever is in Salem’s arms slides down a bit, and Arthur can see the saddest little thing he’s ever witnessed in his life. It’s a child, so broken that he cannot even identify if they are male or female, their cheeks horrifically gaunt and dark circles beneath their tired eyes. Smoke and what looks like smeared paint covers their tiny face, and a mess of matted, tangled brown hair sits atop their head. Arthur’s expression falls.

“By the gods, what happened to them?” he asks, resisting the urge to reach forward. He’s never claimed to be a good man, but even someone as vile as him cannot deny sympathy for a suffering child. “They look like they might keel over if you held them wrong…”

Salem shushes Arthur, the child squirming a bit. “This is Tyrian.” she says softly. “I will tell you more after she is healed, but know that she is the answer to our prayers.”

Arthur takes Salem and her new recruit straight to the medbay on the top floor of the castle. He’s sickened when he sees Tyrian’s body in full. The poor girl is dressed in rags that look so small, she must have been wearing them for years. Her feet are nearly black on the bottom, her toenails thick and ingrown, her fingernails far too long and filed into sharp points. Her tail--an impressive display of evolutionary talent, topped with a stinger that seems so sharp, Arthur is almost afraid to touch it--is covered in chipping paint. He finally puts two and two together: she’s been painted up like a Deathstalker. Every inch of her is sad; bedsores, bruises, whip lashes, burns, cuts both self-inflicted and otherwise. Arthur gently trails his fingers along her hollow cheek before getting to work.

He cuts the dress off of her, tossing it to the side. He makes a noise of disgust when he realizes she hasn’t even been given underwear. What happened to her?

As he works, Salem talks. Arthur washes and chips and bandages and sutures, and Salem tells him the hell this poor creature crawled from. She found Tyrian at a circus, a few days before pulling her out of it. It was Salem’s assumption that she had been there for a very, very long time, a few years at the absolute least. They would chain her up and parade her around the tent, and she would snap her jaws and snarl like a rabid dog until her act was finished. It didn’t end there, unfortunately. The whip lashes on her back were part of the act, real blood shed for an audience’s cheers. Her hair hadn’t been touched in years, left to fester and mat together. The paint on her tail must have been spray paint or some other kind of enamel, because washing it off pulled away pieces of flaking carapace, took ages to complete. Arthur opened her mouth at one point and found rows of sharp, shark-like teeth. 

“What in--”

“Manually filed, I’m sure. She complained of her jaw hurting most of the time she was conscious.” Salem interrupts. Arthur scoffs in disgust and looks further in, finding more cavities than he could ever imagine on a single being and broken teeth from a very unprofessional filing job.

It takes hours, but eventually Arthur is satisfied with his work. Tyrian lays asleep on the hospital bed, dressed in a hospital gown and clean for what must be the first time in years. Her skin is a pale peach with yellow undertones, her cheeks flushed. The rings under her eyes have subsided a bit, color returning to her thanks to the IV inserted in her arm. Arthur took the time to file her fingers and toes down to a more comfortable point, but he knows he’ll have to do more work later. All that’s left is her hair, so filthy and matted that the doctor can tell it must have grown mold, held lice. This isn’t something with a hope of being combed out, he has to shave her head.

He has a feeling she won’t like that.

Salem eventually leaves, but she gives Arthur instructions to call her once Tyrian wakes. The doctor remains close by, occasionally returning to check the girl’s vitals and refill her IV. Eventually, she wakes with a start, jerking up in bed with her chest heaving. “ 妈妈 !” Arthur jumps out of his skin at the cry and goes rushing to her side, shushing her.

“Darling, hush, you’re safe, it’s--”

“ 我在哪里 ?” she demands. “ 你是谁 ?” Arthur blanches, stutters for a moment.

“I-I--” His parents would be mortified; he hasn’t practiced Mandarin in years. “ M--méiguānxì. Nǐ... ānquánle. Wǒ jiào Arthur. ” his speech is stilted, slow, paced carefully so the girl can understand despite his rustiness.

“Ah--” Tyrian tilts her head to the side. “En--glish?” she asks. Arthur smiles, relieved that he won’t have to stumble over himself.

“Yes, English. My name is Arthur.” he still goes relatively slow, and he knows for the moment not to try anything too complex or difficult to understand. “Your name is Tyrian, isn’t it?”

She nods and repeats, “Your name--Tyrian.” Arthur’s face falters a bit.

“N-no,  _ my  _ name is Arthur.” he clarifies.

“Ah--tha?” The doctor realizes that Tyrian is trying to repeat his name with his accent. He swallows his pride and repeats his name again, enunciating the ‘r’ sounds for Tyrian. “Ar-tur!” she says, almost angry, insistent, perhaps annoyed that Arthur has made her repeat his name twice now. He laughs a bit at her tone and then sits back in one of the chairs near her bed.

“You are very sick.” he tells her. “Do you know what that means?”

“Sick…” Tyrian repeats. Instead of speaking, she mimes what looks like violent vomiting, complete with the sound effects, and Arthur laughs again.

“Yes, sick.” he confirms. “You were hurt very badly, by very bad people. We want to help you.”

Tyrian’s brow furrows about halfway through Arthur’s words and she shakes her head. “Sorry, sorry--” she says softly. It’s… the clearest word she’s said so far, almost completely devoid of her accent. Arthur narrows his eyes.

“It’s alright.” He moves close again, slowly so as not to startle Tyrian, and then points to one of the bandages wrapped around her arm. “Hurt. You were hurt.” he says. To further assist, he lightly smacks his arm in the same place and then says, “Ow!” A nod from Tyrian, and a small giggle at the miming. “I--” he points to himself. “--am going to help. No more hurt.” He points then to the IV and the heart monitor next to Tyrian’s bed, indicating what he’s doing. The girl points at the machines and then to Arthur.

“Ar-tur. You help.” she says. “Help--help Tyrian?” Arthur almost grins.

“Yes, Arthur will help Tyrian.”

The door swings open with a creak, making Tyrian start and scream, cowering almost immediately. Arthur places a hand on her head as she shakes, but she yelps at the touch and he draws back. Salem appears next to the bed, bringing a chill with her, and whispers, “Hush, darling. You’re safe.”

Salem’s language is interesting to say the least. Arthur can understand her perfectly, but not just in English. He can understand her in Hindi, his first language, even though he’s sure she isn’t speaking it. From the look on Tyrian’s face, she understands just as clearly. “ 安全 ...” the girl whispers, smiling dreamily.

“Arthur,” The doctor straightens as Salem addresses him. “Prepare for Tyrian’s next procedure. I will speak to her about what must be done.” He nods. Tyrian isn’t going to like this part.

Arthur stands and makes his way to the medical cabinet against the wall while Salem and Tyrian speak. He marvels to himself at their conversation, Salem speaking what seems to be perfect English and Tyrian responding in Mandarin. He wishes she would let him study her more.

As he pulls a small metal box from the cabinet, he can hear dissent behind him. He opens the box and places the smallest set of blades within onto the electric razor and buzzes it once, testing the battery power before turning to Tyrian. She looks terrified, and she speaks so fast to Salem that Arthur can’t even begin to understand her. When her golden eyes land on the razor in Arthur’s hand, his other one reaching for the scissors in the box, she starts to bawl. Salem holds her close to her chest, whispering to her about how this has to be done, she’ll just get more sick otherwise, but she just keeps screaming.

Salem’s words of comfort never cease, but she looks at Arthur and nods to him. He sighs before approaching the bed from behind Tyrian and grabs a handful of the matted hair. He slices through the first chunk with the scissors, with some resistance, and Tyrian starts to throw a fit when she realizes what’s happening. “You have to hold her or she’ll tear out her IV--” Arthur doesn’t even finish before Salem grabs Tyrian by her tiny wrists and pulls her against her chest. 

Tyrian continues to struggle and twist, but Salem’s hold is ironclad, and the girl doesn’t seem to know that her tail can be used for self defense just yet. It’s a long process, but Arthur does his best to go as fast as he can and cause the least amount of pain. He’ll have to disinfect just about everything when this is done, but it must be done. It’s an hour before Tyrian’s hair is short enough to safely start at it with the razor, and she’s thankfully tired herself out by then, sniffling into Salem’s chest as Arthur sets his scissors to the side.

There’s no pleasant way to describe how Tyrian looks when the job is done than to compare her to a dying cancer patient. Pale skin, gaunt face, bones poking out of every part of her body, and her hair completely gone. Arthur wonders how long she had been left like that, as the color difference between her now-bare scalp and her face is awfully drastic. He didn’t think a part of her body could get paler.

Salem coos and shushes Tyrian as Arthur begins to clean, sweeping up the pieces of hair from the floor and dropping his tools into a disinfectant to soak. He washes his hands thoroughly and makes a note to use a medical shampoo when he bathes tonight for extra precaution. He doesn’t suggest the same of Salem; whatever she is, nothing living wants her.

Though Arthur remains in the medbay, it’s Salem who spends the rest of the evening with Tyrian. She tells the girl fairy tale after fairy tale, myth after myth. He even catches wind of one that sounds suspiciously like his own, with a few fantastical twists and a name change to make the story easy to swallow. He wonders if he should be flattered that Salem thinks him a mighty wizard, sworn to protect all knowledge until his final breath. Eventually, he hears the story of the girl in the tower, a happily ever after gone terribly wrong. He hears Tyrian ask if the girl in the tower ever got the happy ending she wanted. Salem plants a cold kiss on the girl’s forehead.

“Hopefully, she will.” Salem says softly. “But she’ll need help, I think. Sleep, child. You need your rest. Arthur will not be far.” She glides toward the door, stops at the frame to look over her shoulder. “Mama loves you, Tyrian.” she whispers.

Arthur’s blood turns cold.

She closes the door.


	2. Chapter 2

“Exactly how much English can you speak?”

“Tyrian speak… little bit.”

“Well, a little bit is better than nothing.”

“Good?”

“Very good, yes.”

“Good! Tyrian good!”

He never wanted to teach, but Tyrian needs it. Over the course of the following month, Arthur spends his time at Tyrian’s bedside to help her recover and to teach her the academics she missed in her childhood. Slowly, he pries more and more information from her about her past, or what little she seems to remember. At one point, Arthur asks her about her name.

“‘Tyrian’ doesn’t sound very Mistrali.” he notes. Tyrian hums into her juice box and shakes her head.

“Not Tyrian,” she clarifies. “Circus give.” Arthur cocks a brow.

“Do you remember your real name? The one you had before the circus?” he asks. Tyrian shakes her head and sucks out the last of her juice, making an awful gurgling noise that Arthur despises.

“It… Tyrian. Different. Different Tyrian.” she says, brows furrowed as she tries to explain it in her broken, but improving, English.

“It--did it sound like ‘Tyrian’ then?” Arthur asks. She nods.

“Sound like. But not.” Tyrian grabs her fork with her fist and takes a bite of the food Arthur prepared for her. “Different Tyrian.”

Arthur’s computer is alight with background checks and name searches after that. Phonetics are difficult in the Mistrali culture, considering the name ‘Tyrian’ could be similar to an almost endless number of first, last, and full names. He wonders what he might even do if he found the girl’s real name.

“Watts,” Salem’s voice is quiet, enough so she won’t disturb Tyrian as the girl sleeps. Arthur straightens. “With me.”

Orders given, Salem turns and leaves, wisps of smoke following her. Arthur sighs and rubs at his eyes. He’s tired.

Salem’s room is plush, but unused. She revealed to him a few years ago that she doesn’t require sleep, and the bed is more to make her feel at home in the castle she modeled after the one that held so many fond memories. He’s been here before, sat on her velvet bed covers, been wrapped up in the wind and the sheer red curtains, sat on the balcony and sipped floral tea as they play chess with ivory and obsidian. He knows the routine.

See, when two beings as powerful and graceful as they find one another, nothing can truly stop them. They kissed only a single night after Arthur settled in, made love the next week, though neither would really consider it ‘making love’--just gentle enough to not quite qualify for ‘fucking.’ One night, Arthur asked her if this was love, or even simply emotion. He knew her nature. He knew what she had been twisted into. Salem had simply replied, “Consider it an experiment on the mortal body.”

An experiment of the mortal body. What an elegant way to call him a casual fling.

Salem’s gown shimmers in the moonlight as she approaches him, sliding down her body and leaving a sheer trail of lace and mesh that hugs her otherworldly figure like a dream. Her hair untwists itself, falling around her shoulders in a beautiful mess of white curls. Her clawed hand finds his shirt and begins to undo his tie, and he takes to undoing his buttons.

“We’re a proper family now, aren’t we?” she asks, laughing a bit to herself as the silk tie hits the floor. “Mother, father, and daughter. Didn’t you always want children?”

Arthur sighs as she slides his dress shirt from his shoulders. The brush of black hair across his chest and stomach is halted by scars. Some are precise, edged with the telltale signs of healed stitches, and then along his right shoulder is a spiderweb of scars, ending at a dull metal prosthetic that runs the length from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers. His hand is covered by what appears to be a glove, matched in color to the rest of his skin and made of a soft rubber meant to simulate the same feeling. “I did want children, but not here.” he answers, taking her hands and pulling her close. “It feels too… dangerous now.”

“Dangerous?” she asks, trailing her nails along Arthur’s bare chest. “How so? Is it the Grimm?” She blinks a few times in a row, fluttering her long white eyelashes and making Arthur’s heart almost skip a beat.

“It’s--” Arthur is stopped by Salem’s cold, black-lacquered lips pressing against his own. He’s pushed into the soft bed as she climbs on top of him, her legs planted on either side of him, and she sighs as they part. Arthur’s brow furrows. “Am I permitted to speak now?” he spits. Salem frowns. She sits up, planting herself on Arthur’s stomach and crossing her arms.

“Continue, if you must.” she says shortly.

“It’s you.” Arthur confesses. “This mission. This world. What I’ve become. If I had things my way, Tyrian wouldn’t even be here. She needs a hospital, not just one doctor, and a normal family to take care of her and love her properly.”

Salem blanches. She glares down at Arthur and then slides off the bed, moving toward the enormous windows by the balcony, arms still crossed. “...I was a normal mother once.” she says, bitterness in her tone. “I had four daughters, not unlike Tyrian, and a husband not unlike you--”

Arthur interrupts her with a scoff and stands as well, snatching his shirt up from the floor to start dressing himself again. He isn’t even near hard. “Yes, and how well that turned out.” he says under his breath. 

The window cracks.

“What… did you just say?” Salem asks. Arthur falters briefly in buttoning his shirt, but continues as he speaks.

“I said, ‘look how that turned out.’ Dead children, dead husband, cursed for eternity.” He turns to face her. “Such trivialities as family? Forget them. Leave them behind. I thought you were stronger than that. Personally?” Another scoff as he buttons his sleeves. “Such thoughts are beneath me. I only want Tyrian to be saf--”

He’s against the wall. Not just against it, but flung. Every nerve in his back is alight with pain and the windows shatter, raining down glass shards upon their heads. He looks up and Salem’s nightclothes darken with that inky black smoke, solidifying again into her gown. Her hands are at her sides, but one is poised as if to attack. As if she had already attacked. Arthur… Arthur can’t focus.

It hurts now. Burning, throbbing, pounding in his head, like the worst migraine he’s ever had. He tries again to focus but nothing works. He feels like he’s cross-eyed as he stands, dizzy and off balance. Salem starts for him and he flattens against the wall.

“You think you’re beneath me?” she asks, her voice frighteningly calm despite the fury in her face. “Beneath _me_? When I found you, there was an empty can of fuel in one hand and a box of matches in the other. You had murdered your wife--”

“We were engaged! It was a business marriage between our families, I didn’t love her--!” Salem slaps him.

“--and were ready to burn the house down with you inside it. You think you’re beneath me? _Me_?! Death only made me stronger. It would have turned you into snakeskin.” She holds up her hand then, presenting a bright, emerald green eye, the slit pupil slowly but surely expanding as the life leaves it. The cord hangs between her fingers, and the barest hints of blood drip from her nails. “But yes. I am beneath you, the serpent who cannot tempt even the weakest of hearts.”

She throws the eye to the ground and slams her glass heel onto it, squishing it under her foot. Arthur chokes on his own breath.

“If you care so much more for the girl, then go.” she says then, her voice almost smug. “When she takes her first step out of your office, she’s mine. After all--Spring needs a successor, and she so reminds me of my youngest.”

After a few hours of bandaging and crying and praying Tyrian is sleeping through it all, Arthur collapses into his desk chair. Spring. Salem wants to make Tyrian the Spring maiden. He looks over to the girl asleep in her cot and his brow furrows. She would certainly make a wonderful warrior, but something about this is wrong. She’s so young, so wounded. What on earth would Salem do to her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments, questions, wanna just talk, hit me up on tumblr!
> 
> http://atlesianic.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads-up for the sexual abuse starting up in this chapter.
> 
> also arthur is a cobra faunus

Arthur watches from the balcony above the arena, legs crossed and resting his cheek on a propped up fist. Beneath him are Tyrian and Salem, sparring with one another and reaching what must be their fourth hour of training. Salem barks a command and Tyrian jumps on all fours, darting for the targets placed around the enormous room and tearing through them with her daggers and tail in conjunction. Arthur sighs.

She’s grown. It’s been barely a few months and she’s grown so much. Her hair is messy, a tangled halo of dark brown curls that stick out around her ears. Her teeth are still jagged, though Arthur was kind enough to file them properly and remove the worst of the cavities and broken teeth. There’s color in her skin, meat on her bones, and Salem is working every muscle in her body for a fate Arthur isn’t sure she can handle.

“Doctor Watts!” Tyrian suddenly calls from below, jolting him from his reverie, and he leans over the balcony to find the little girl dripping with sweat and surrounded by decimated dummies. “Lookit! I am get strong!” she declares, flexing one of her arms. Salem laughs and Arthur begins to applaud. “Kick ass!” she shouts then, and Salem delivers a swift smack across the back of Tyrian’s head.

Arthur stops clapping. “My lady, please--”

“Shall I remove your other eye as well?” Salem snarls up at him. “The replacement seems to be doing you such good. It would be a disservice to leave you unbalanced.” Arthur swallows a lump in his throat and sits back in his chair. Salem smirks. “Go, Tyrian. Wash up.”

Tyrian gets water in her food as her curls drip from the shower and into her bowl. Arthur laughs as she eats, ravenous since the first day she arrived. Idle chatter, nothing of note, passes between them as they eat alone. Salem doesn’t need food, after all. When the plates are clean, Arthur takes Tyrian’s hand and leads her upstairs to her room, where she immediately runs for her slowly filling bookshelf and snatches up a story. Arthur laughs to himself.

“What story are you reading me tonight?” he asks, sitting on the edge of her bed. Tyrian leaps up onto the mattress and holds out the leatherbound book. Arthur can read the title, of course, but he tilts his head and makes a face as if he’s confused. “I’m not sure I know what that says.” he tells her. Tyrian giggles and flips the book back around.

“Th… thhhh… ‘The Ta-lay’--” Arthur clears his throat.

“The letter ‘e’ at the end of a word makes the vowel do… what?” he asks.

“It--makes long?” Tyrian asks. Arthur cocks a brow. “It makes  _ it  _ long!” she corrects. Arthur nods.

“Once more then.”

“‘The Tale off--’ Mm, no… one ‘f’ is soft sound.” Tyrian says to herself. “‘The Tale of Lit-tle--’” Heavy on the consonant, but Arthur forgives it. “---Red Reading Hood.’” Arthur shakes his head.

“The suffix ‘-ing’ on the word ‘ride’ takes away our ‘e,’ remember? But it’s still pronounced…?”

“Ride! Riding Hood!”

“Excellent work! Let us begin then!”

Tyrian is asleep before she finishes even the third page, but that is rather expected of her. Her reading is getting better every day, and Arthur notes she made it an extra paragraph before falling asleep tonight. He slides the book back into place, tucks her into bed, and leaves the room.

Then he leans against the door, staring up at the dark ceiling with an empty expression. What is this? What is he doing? Salem recruited him to be her hacker and her strategist, her right hand man, someone she could hold when her human side tormented her so, but now he finds himself bending knee to a child before her. His head hurts, right behind his left eye. Damn her.

Breakfast is quick, then Tyrian is off to the weight room. Push-ups, pull-ups (working legs, arms, and tail), stretches and balance beam exercises, an hour on the punching bag, weights strapped to her wrists and ankles as she runs laps, and Arthur times it all. When his portion of the day is finished, Salem takes Tyrian off to the arena. Sparring, sparring, sparring. Every day Tyrian grows stronger, more hardened, more wicked. 

“Tyrian--” Arthur begins one night at dinner, the rare night that Salem joins them simply for the chatter. “--don’t eat so fast. You’ll make yourself sick.” The doctor reaches for Tyrian’s hand to pull her fork away from the plate, and she growls at him like an animal before slamming her dagger into the top of his hand, pinning it to the table. Arthur cries out and rips it from his flesh before striking Tyrian hard across the face. “You brat--!” he hisses, baring his fangs.

Salem laughs. “Very good, Tyrian.” she purrs. “Showing our good doctor his place is quite good for his ego, I believe.”

Tyrian giggles. “I can stab his other hand too!” she croons, grinning from ear to ear. “I wanna see him bleed!”

“Spoiled child…” Arthur snarls. “I should strike you again, teach you a less--” He cries out as Tyrian’s tail suddenly wraps around his hand and yanks him forward, almost nose to nose with the young girl.

“Oh please?” she coos. “The sting is so sweet! Maybe you’ll draw blood! Oh…” Her tail lifts Arthur’s hand, and she licks his bleeding palm with a shiver. Arthur’s lip curls in disgust. “...how sweet it must taste…” The doctor tries in vain to pull his hand free. “...orgasmic.” He pulls back so hard that he crashes into his chair and falls onto the floor. Tyrian begins to cackle.

“What--what have you been teaching her?!” Arthur demands, pushing himself back to his feet. “She’s barely eleven--”

“Twelve, actually.” Salem corrects. “And our little girl is already becoming a woman! A proper maiden.”

“You’re a faunus, like me! Can you tell? Can you smell it? How different I am?” Tyrian is bouncing in her seat, and Arthur’s forked tongue flickers briefly past his lips for a better taste of the air. He recoils and turns his gaze back on Salem.

“Menstruation doesn’t make her a woman. Stop treating her like she is.” he hisses.

“I think he’s scared!” Tyrian giggles, standing up on her chair and then climbing onto the table. “Mama said you won’t sleep with her anymore!”

“What--?!”

“Maybe you like me like you used to like her! Maybe you wanna fuck me but you’re scaaaaaaared!”

Arthur has to keep himself from gagging as he begins to retreat from the room, his face draining of color. “Tyrian, stop it.” he demands, his voice firm. Instead of replying, Tyrian cackles and grabs the hem of her dress, pulling it up to her chin. Arthur manages to jerk his head to the side and hurry from the dining room before he can see anything he might regret.

Tyrian falls onto the table then, laughing harder than she has in days. Then she begins chanting, her voice sing-song as it follows Arthur down the hall and up the stairs: “Arthur wants to fuck me! Arthur wants to fuck me! Arthur wants to fuck me!”

When he finally stumbles into his room, he runs for the bathroom and vomits into the toilet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me up or just ask me stuff
> 
> http://atlesianic.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

“Arthur…?”

He sits up at his desk with a start, his glasses crooked. Damn, he fell asleep at the keyboard. What a waste. He looks around for a moment for the source of the voice that woke him, and he finds Tyrian standing in his doorway.

Her curly hair, tied in a golden ribbon high atop her head, falls well past her shoulder now, and her black and yellow robes cause the light to halo her in such an odd way that Arthur almost thinks he’s hallucinating for a moment. She sounds… scared.

“What is it, darling?” Arthur asks, straightening his glasses.

“Mama needs you.” Tyrian says, opening the door a bit further. “She… she found someone new. She said--it’s my sister.”

Arthur finds Cinder Fall sat on the edge of the table in the main hall, covered almost head-to-toe in blood and shaking. Tear fall off her chin in fat globs, staining her dirty nightgown further. At first, he thought Tyrian’s comment about this being her sister was more of Salem’s twisted family game--but he sees it the second he lays eyes on her.

The same pale pink skin, the same yellow undertones, the same curly hair that falls over her shoulder, so dark it’s nearly black, and bright yellow eyes that almost glow in the dim light. What he doesn’t see, however, is a tail, or any other noticeable trait. He looks to Salem. “Is she…?”

“I followed a lead on a rather unfortunate situation at the bottom of the mountain in Mistral.” Salem begins. “A young girl being sold as a sex slave to those with enough lien. My first thoughts were that, perhaps, a girl with such pain in her heart would be a good candidate for our next maiden. And when I found her…”

Cinder smiles softly over at Tyrian, who returns the look. “Tai… lived.” she says softly. Arthur’s brow furrows.

“Tai?” he repeats.

“Oh yeah…” Cinder laughs. “Tyrian--she was Tai. Tai Ruan.” Arthur hums. That explains the odd naming situation. “I--my name was Chen Da, before my aunt and uncle took me in.”

“I didn’t realize Tyrian had any more family.” Arthur confesses. “We always assumed she was alone. That’s how they found her after all.” Cinder laughs, a tittering sound that makes more tears fall from her chin.

“Our village… it was attacked by Grimm.” Tyrian’s hand finds the table, nails digging into the wood as Cinder speaks. “Our parents locked us in the cellar while they went to fight so we’d be safe, and when we finally got out, we split up. Tyrian went to find Mama and Baba and I went looking for help. Someone on the road found me and I told them to take me to the city, to see our aunt and uncle. Mama’s sister never approved of how she chose to live, so they were… very far away. When I told them what happened, we went back for Tyrian, but all we found was blood and bodies.” Cinder sniffles and wipes her eyes, smearing the half-dry blood across her face. 

“Aunt Lan and Uncle Russel adopted me after that, and my uncle wanted me to have a normal name. So…”

“Cinder Fall.” Arthur finishes. “So then… twins.” He laughs to himself. “Identical, by the looks of it. Though the tail--”

“Is a common occurrence among twins in faunus culture.” Salem explains. “A rare one, but not anything to be concerned about. Genes splice in the womb when the two babies are formed, and one gets the trait instead of both of them. A human faunus.”

Arthur is quiet for a moment, looking between Cinder and Tyrian as their fingers intertwine and their eyes never leave one another. Tyrian had just turned eleven by the time they found her, or at least that’s what Arthur could tell. She was supposed to be thirteen by now, and had been picked up by the circus when she was five. Eight years without her sister. “...how old are you, Cinder?” he asks.

“Fourteen. Why?” she answers.

Nine years then. “Tyrian--didn’t know her age when we rescued her. I had to take a guess based on what I had.” He pauses. “Happy birthday, Tyrian.”

Tyrian and Cinder Fall are practically inseparable after that. They sleep together, eat together, train together, bathe together. Normally Arthur would find such closeness at their age to be odd, but considering the near-decade spent apart, he’s happy for them. Cinder is assigned the apropos role of the fall maiden, and Tyrian continues her training as spring. Arthur oversees their personal sparring matches, and eventually the two of them have matching daggers at their sides.

It takes a few weeks to get Cinder to tell him what happened to her the day she arrived.

Her uncle had been selling her as a prostitute, and her aunt had turned a blind eye when she saw how much her adopted daughter was bringing into the home. Cinder’s wardrobe consisted of frilly dresses and bows much too young for her, a better appeal for her clientele. The fact that she’d been raped almost nightly for the last seven years or so made her maturity make sense. She had been forced to grow up, in the worst of ways.

But one night, when her uncle pinned her to the bed while another man climbed on top of her and began to fuck her, something inside her snapped. Quite literally in her case. The windows shattered, the light bulbs popped, and glass shards were suddenly stuck in her attackers like pins in a cushion. The blood she came to Salem covered in was her family’s, her own, dripping down her face and between her thighs. Salem had come in disguise, hoping to fake being an interested client in order to whisk the girl away, and stumbled upon her victory scene instead.

Arthur wonders what these children did to deserve such a life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning again for some bad stuff: forced incest and implied rape
> 
> also a bit shorter my b

Tyrian has her first mission just before her fifteenth birthday. She is ordered to make her way to Vacuo, all under the guise of a student on the way to the academy, and assassinate one of the history professors there. According to Salem, he had started sticking his nose in places he wasn’t wanted, and she’d rather remain a mystery to the world for now. Arthur almost laughs. The mission is easy, less of a challenge and more of an errand for Tyrian to run while Salem starts her personal training with Cinder.

But Tyrian is happy to go, blades on her hips and fake documents in hand as she boards the auto-piloted transport to the continent so very far away from home. Arthur worries she’ll get homesick, maybe lost, but he shakes the thoughts away as his schedule fills again.

He spends the days without Tyrian in his office, typing away at code and listening to the sounds of Salem and Cinder training relentlessly beyond the walls of his little hideaway. He notes a strange lack of Salem’s scolding and tough love; it seems where Tyrian is too excitable to be perfect every time, Cinder is so precise that she can do no wrong.

It’s a month before Tyrian returns.

She places the head of the professor in question at Salem’s feet and Arthur scoffs. “Trivial.” he mutters. Both Cinder and Salem raise a brow.

“How so?” Cinder asks. “She did exactly as she was supposed to.”

“And the task in question was trivial.” Arthur repeats, glaring at Salem instead of the girl addressing him. “Did you really want her on a mission, or did you simply want Cinder to yourself?”

Silence falls over the room, and Tyrian jumps to her feet with a growl. “How dare you!” she snarls. “You dare to speak to Mama that way?! Maybe she’ll send me after your head next--!”

“Tyrian.”

The girl freezes in place.

“Yes, Mama?”

Salem stands and moves to the small altar behind her throne. In its center is a box, and within the box is a mirrored black dagger. Tyrian grins and bounces excitedly, and Cinder smiles wickedly. “Shall we show our good doctor just how obedient you are?” she asks. “We wouldn’t want him to think ill of you, now would we?”

The twins quickly reposition, standing next to one another at attention. Salem waves a hand toward Arthur and his chair slams into the back of his knees, forcing him to sit as inky black hands crawl from the floor to wrap around his wrists. Salem hand Tyrian the dagger and sits back down, motioning for Cinder to join her.

“Remove your clothing, Tyrian.” Salem orders. Tyrian grins.

“Yes, Mama!” As she begins to strip, almost excitedly, Arthur feels his stomach churn.

“Tyrian, stop it!” he shouts. “Don’t listen--” His voice vanishes in his throat, like he’s choking on nothing but he can still breathe. Salem smirks.

“Go ahead, Tyrian. Show Arthur how we play.”

Arthur hates seeing all of her scars when her clothing is finally kicked away. He hates seeing her stripped naked more, but he doesn’t dare look away yet. Salem smiles and lifts her finger. She sticks out her tongue--black and dead looking--and drags her nail down its center. Tyrian bounces on her heels and opens her mouth as well, and then jabs her tongue with the blade and tears it in two.

Arthur can’t cry out, but he does begin to struggle. Tyrian’s aura doesn’t activate, and she turns her head to look at Arthur with a mouthful of blood. “I’m really good at this game.” she says. “I didn’t pass out for almost three hours last time!” Oh God, oh God, Arthur tugs harder against his bonds, but they just tighten. Salem looks to Cinder, who nods.

Cinder’s clothing is dropped faster than Tyrian’s, swept from her body in a single fluid motion as she strides toward her sister with a smile. She takes hold of Tyrian’s chin and turns it so they’re both facing Arthur, pressed against each other. Cinder sighs dreamily. “Let’s show him what he’s missing, hm?”

They kiss. Arthur feels bile in his throat as he watches blood splatter across Cinder’s face and drip down both of their chins. Salem makes the tiniest noise and Tyrian’s eyes open and dart to her, though the kiss never breaks. She drags her hand across her stomach this time, and Tyrian smiles into the kiss before slamming the dagger into her middle and tearing open her stomach. 

Arthur starts to cough, tears sting his eyes, Cinder’s hand moves lower on her sister’s body, and he vomits again. The last thing he hears before blacking out is Salem’s laughter, echoing off the walls as moans he wishes he didn’t have to hear begin to join the twisted chorus.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> featuring my genderfluid watts headcanon

“YOU SPOILED BRAT!”

“Is that the best you’ve got? As furious as you look, I thought you’d try something a bit more biting.”

“FUCK YOU! SLUT! WHORE!”

“Don’t push me, you animal, you’ll wrinkle my new dress!”

“YOU’RE AN ANIMAL TOO! CUNT!”

“I said don’t push me!”

Tyrian’s claws rake across her sister’s cheek, and in the split second Cinder is stunned, she kicks her square in the chest. “You think she loves you more than me? DO YOU?! You’re wrong. I was here first! I WILL ALWAYS BE HER FAVORITE!”

“Then why, pray tell, does she favor me more than you?” Cinder spits a mouthful of blood as her aura slowly heals the cuts on her cheek. Tyrian growls and her tail snakes forward to grab Cinder’s ankle and yank her to the ground.

“You don’t even love her like I do. You don’t KNOW HER like I do! You BITCH, you don’t know ANYTHING about what I’ve been through to get here!”

“And you know everything about me?”

“Yeah--you sucked dick and ate pussy until someone finally outbid your fucking daddy.”

Cinder is on Tyrian in an instant, screaming in fury as fists fly and teeth gnash. Neither of them is armed, but neither of them needs to be. They’re lethal enough on their own. Tyrian’s stinger rakes across Cinder’s back, thankfully without the poison, and rips open her dress. Cinder slams her fist into Tyrian’s mouth, making her sister spit out a tooth with a cackle.

Arthur comes running in at full speed, almost tripping over himself as he rushes to stop them from killing one another. He pulls his whip from his sleeve, using that instead of his brute strength to wrap around Cinder and pull her back. “What in the gods’ names has gotten into you two?!” he demands, placing himself between them as quickly as he can. “Do you want to kill each other?”

“YES!” Tyrian roars, jumping for Cinder before Arthur catches her by the shoulder and pushes her back to the ground.

“What happened?!” he demands.

“Tyrian thinks he’s more special than me!” Cinder spits. Tyrian’s expression goes from furious to mortified in a split second, and she leaps for Cinder again. Arthur grabs her, but she keeps pushing.

“SHUT UP! You don’t know anything, don’t just say things like that!” she roars, fear edging in her voice. “Why are you acting like I’m a boy?!”

“Because--!” Cinder stands and gets as close to Tyrian as she dares. “--you told me you were!”

Tyrian ducks under Arthur’s grip too fast for him to stop and she smacks Cinder across the face. “SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut UP!” She screams and covers her ears with her hands. “I’m not a boy, I didn’t say that!”

“Tyrian!”

Arthur’s voice cuts through the screaming and everything stops. His brow is furrowed as he looks over the twins, concern beginning to taint his harsh expression. He sighs.

“Cinder, are you alright?” she asks. “You don’t need any immediate attention?”

“No. He didn’t hit me hard enough to break my aura.” she answers indignantly.

Tyrian’s eyes burn as they start to glow a violent purple. “Watch me--” she snarls, starting forward again. Arthur grabs her tail to stop her.

“Good. Then go wash up before Salem sees you like this. Tyrian and I need to have a chat.”

The first thing Arthur does when they reach his office is tend to Tyrian’s wounds, though they’re few and far between considering how powerful her aura is. When that’s all said and done, he sits her in the cushy chair across from his desk and sits opposite.

“Cinder said… you’re a boy.” he begins. “What did she mean by that?” Tyrian huffs.

“I said ‘I wonder if boys could be maidens if they weren’t born like that’ and she started freaking out!” she insists. “I didn’t say anything about me being a boy! I was just curious! ‘Cause I know there are some girls who were born as guys and some guys who were born as girls.” Tyrian crosses her arms and her tail begins to flick back and forth against the floor.

“The term you’re looking for is ‘transgender,’ Tyrian.” Arthur explains. “It simply means someone is a different gender than they were assigned as at birth.” 

“Like you?” Tyrian asks. Arthur laughs.

“Well… to an extent, yes. My identity is what’s considered genderfluid, which is technically transgender, but--different.” He shakes his head. “That’s besides the point; we’re talking about you, not me. Why were you curious about transgender men becoming maidens?”

Tyrian falls silent then. She shifts in her seat, almost like she’s uncomfortable, and then she shrugs. “I was just… curious.” Arthur’s brow furrows. “I think… it would be pretty cool if there were boys who were maidens.”

Arthur nods, smiling a bit. “Yes, it would be.” he admits. “Unfortunately, the rules of maidenhood follow the soul, not the body. A transgender woman could become a maiden, but not the other way around. I think perhaps the only time ‘men’ have become maidens has been when the power transfers to a woman who has yet to figure out she’s a woman.” Arthur leans back in his chair. “Just as I could not become a maiden, as I am not a woman full-time so to speak, neither could a trans man.”

Tyrian is quiet again, which is… odd for her. Usually the office is filled with her idle chatter while she’s sat somewhere near his desk. His chest aches watching her, seeing her brows twitch and her eyes dart about as she thinks. 

“What… what would Mama think… if I wasn’t a girl?”


	7. Chapter 7

It’s six months before either of them think it’s appropriate to tell Salem. They don’t even tell Cinder. It was partly Tyrian’s idea, keeping his identity a secret for so long. ‘Just in case,’ he had said, and Arthur agreed.

“I’m coming with you,” Arthur assures him as they make their way to the throne room. “She can try to keep me out, but I won’t let her.” Tyrian laughs.

“I think I’ll be okay if you can’t come in.” he admits. “She’s still my Mama after all. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt me like that.”

Arthur’s chest aches. The looming doors to Salem’s throne room have never looked so foreboding in his life. He tells Tyrian so often not to worry, but he knows this will only end in pain. Tyrian might not even leave the throne room alive. Salem is a creature of fury. Not to say she’ll be upset to find out that her prized hunter has figured out such an important part of himself, simply that he will have wasted so many years.

The doors open with an awful creak and Salem smiles as the two of them enter. “Arthur, Tyrian.” she greets. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Tyrian opens his mouth to speak, but Arthur steps forward. “Tyrian and I had a breakthrough and came to inform you of how it might change plans to our current objective.” he explains. Salem tilts her head to the side.

“Oh really now?” she asks. “Is this a breakthrough for you, Arthur, or for her?” Tyrian winces.

“M-me, your grace.” he says, stepping forward. “It’s about me.”

Salem nods slowly and stands from her throne, approaching the two of them with measured steps. “Then I do not see…” she stops in front of Arthur and holds up a hand, her middle finger curled against her thumb. “...why he should interfere.” She flicks him in the chest, an action that shouldn’t be terribly painful in and of itself, and Arthur goes flying into the hall. He flattens against the wall and the doors shut before he can get back inside, locking in place.

Tyrian’s breathing grows ragged.

“Now then,” Salem looks to her hunter. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”

Tyrian drops to his hands and knees with a sob and starts to speak, his words coming out at a thousand miles an hour. “I CAN’T BE SPRING!” he begins. “I CAN’T! I--I don’t know what happened, but I’m not a girl and I know that only girls can be maidens and Arthur told me that the magic only applies to the soul, not the body, so I still can’t be a maiden even after all of this and I’M SO SORRY!” He sobs out the last syllable, his words devolving into sputtering cries and deep gasps as tears puddle on the floor under his face. Salem is frighteningly quiet.

“Well…” She speaks after what feels like hours, and leans down to pick up Tyrian by his chin. Her touch is cold but gentle, and Tyrian’s sniffles die a bit. “I am very happy to hear that you discovered such a wonderful thing.” Her cold hand travels, sliding along his cheek to rest in his hair, keeping him close. “I know these things can be difficult to understand,” Her touch turns into an ironclad grip, tugging on his hair. Tyrian’s face falls a bit. “So I admire you for your bravery.”

“M-Mama--Mama, you’re hurting me--”

“But you see, Tyrian…” She begins to tug, and Tyrian’s tears return full force. “I didn’t have any sons. Just daughters.” Salem pulls her hand back as hard as she can, and an awful sound like a phone book being torn in half bounces off the walls. Tyrian wails in agony and a thud sounds from the other side of the door as Arthur futilely tries to get back inside.

Salem stands before Tyrian as he screams, clutching a handful of dark brown hair in her hand. Tyrian holds his head in his hands, his hair frayed at the edges where it now sits at his ears, blood dripping down his face and the back of his neck as his scalp begins to bleed. “MAMA, WHY--?!”

“NO.” Salem’s voice makes his ears hurt. “I am not your mother anymore.” she hisses. She lets go of the handful of hair and it scatters across the floor. Tyrian whimpers and scrambles forward, trying desperately to pick up the pieces as they float away. “And Cinder is no longer your sister.” 

“Wh… what…?” Tyrian stutters, looking up at Salem with wide, tear-filled eyes. He’s seeing double, the pain making his head throb with his racing heartbeat.

“Callows.” Salem spits, the name tasting bitter on her tongue. “The weak state of a scorpion when its protection is lost. White and soft and pathetic.” Tyrian feels his stomach drop. “That is what you are, and so that is what you will be named. Tyrian Callows.”

He grabs her skirt, pulling down as if to bring her closer. “NO!” He screeches. “No, PLEASE, you can’t!”

“I can’t?” Salem repeats. “How odd…” She grabs a fistful of his hair again and yanks him to his feet, relishing in how sweet his screams taste as he wobbles. “Here I was convinced I was a goddess.”

She roars, her beauty twisted as her face contorts in fury, and she tears her claws through Tyrian’s chest once, twice, three times. He coughs up a mouthful of blood and stumbles back a few steps. “M… ma… ma…?” Salem kicks him.

Arthur, his voice hoarse from screaming for Tyrian, goes running for his office. The entire castle is wired with electronic locks, after all. He can open the door, get Tyrian out of there before it’s too late…

“Call me mother again and I’ll cut out your tongue.” Salem warns. “Now then… crawl to your good doctor.” she spits. “If you die on the way there, the only way he is allowed to touch you is to clean up your corpse before it begins to smell.” 

Tyrian chokes on his blood and nods as he stumbles backward another few steps. The doors fly open and Arthur cheers in his office as they do, and Tyrian hits the floor with a cry. He manages to push himself up onto his hands and knees and starts the slow crawl toward the stairs beyond the doors.

He meets Arthur halfway, white as a sheet and with a trail of blood behind him. Arthur scoops the boy up in his arms and runs as fast as he can back to the medbay. Salem left him with an X-shaped gash across his chest and a nearly-vertical one across his stomach. Arthur isn’t sure if he even has enough blood in his stores to keep Tyrian alive, and he preps the equipment he needs just in case he has to start a transfusion between the two of them.

Hours. Hours pass. Arthur is dripping with sweat and covered in blood by the end of it. Tyrian is laid across the medical cot he’s grown so used to seeing the boy in, bandages wrapped tight around his torso and his head and sleeping peacefully thanks to his painkillers.

In the nearly-fifteen years Arthur has been in this castle, in the nearly-forty years of his life, no one has seen him shed a single tear.

He bursts into a fit of sobs on the end of Tyrian’s bed.


	8. Chapter 8

It takes Tyrian a week to recover enough that Arthur trusts him to sleep outside the medbay. He’s armed with powerful painkillers and sleep aids, as well as plenty of fresh gauze in case any excess bleeding kicks up. He’s more than happy to be in his own bed again after all of this.

Tyrian’s room is, out of the others in the castle, unique. It’s due in part to his biology, as he is coldblooded and needs the room kept at a high temperature in comparison to the rest of the fortress. A space heater sits next to the door and a control panel on the wall gives Tyrian sole autonomy over the temperature of the room itself. On his bed--which is simply a mattress and a boxspring on the ground--are at least five thick blankets, all clumped together in a pile in the corner. The windows would usually let in a dull red light from the world outside, but Tyrian had elected a few years ago to cover them in paper and tape to keep the light out. His walls are lined with bookshelves, and the bookshelves are filled with fairy tales and textbooks and history books, and guarding those books are trinkets and toys saved from his life in Evernight. There’s his closet, filled with clothing he’ll have to get rid of now, the bathroom connected to the room, and his vanity.

He finds himself limping toward the stool before it. On the tabletop are some of his most prized possessions. His hairbrush, the ribbons he ties his braid with, a hand mirror, a small bag with a few makeup products, and a small, boxy camera with an instant-print slot in the front. The mirror of his vanity is covered in blurry photographs from the same camera, and handwritten notes from himself and the people in the castle. A picture of Salem playing the piano in the library, a note from Arthur telling him to study hard while he was away on a mission, a poorly taken photograph of Cinder and Tyrian arm in arm.

And the mirror itself. Tyrian looks awful. His skin is pale from his poor state, and dark bags circle his eyes. His hair is a disgusting mess, chopped at the ears and just barely repaired by Arthur’s hair clipping kit. And sat below it is the face of a pathetic little girl.

He punches the mirror. Glass embeds itself into his knuckles and he grins almost drunkenly at the feeling. He takes great pleasure in the pain that comes with pulling the pieces out.

He takes a careful shower before finally crawling into bed.

He is awoken by the creaking of a door he knows he locked. He jumps up in bed, grabbing a dagger from the floor and pointing his tail over his shoulder. Even if this isn’t an intruder, Tyrian expects Arthur coming to check on his stitches. He doesn’t expect--

“Do you hate me so that you would kill me now?” 

Salem.

Tyrian drops the dagger in an instant and recoils against the wall, pulling his blankets up and around himself as if to hide from her. She laughs. “Yes, I imagine you would be afraid of me now.” she says softly, gliding into his room and shutting the door without needing to touch it. She sits on the edge of Tyrian’s bed, her back turned to him.

She is dressed differently, he notes. Her hair is down around her shoulders, impossibly long and pooling behind her upon his mattress like cream. A simple black dress adorns her figure, not form-fitting as it usually would be, but loose and held only by thin straps at her shoulders. He’s never seen her like this, only ever adorned in finery and with a crown of her own being about her head. He inches closer.

“I wanted to apologize, Tyrian,” she says, her voice quivering as though she might cry. “For hurting you the way I did.” She turns to look at him, and he gasps. 

She _is_ crying. Her tears are thick and black and drip from her chin in heavy globs, but Tyrian knows tears when he sees them. He’s at her side in an instant, and he dares to touch her without permission to wipe those cursed tears away. Salem takes his hands in hers to gently stop him. “Please, Tyrian…” she whispers. “Just listen.”

He pulls his hands away and she lets them go, watching them fold in his lap. She takes a slow, measured breath before speaking.

“I do not want you to think I punished you for your discovery. I am so very happy that you have found your truth.” She smiles at him, and Tyrian feels a fluttering in his stomach at the sight. “What I punished you for was your tardiness in telling me. Had I known sooner, I could have trained you to hunt the maiden rather than be her.”

“But I--” Salem glares, and he falters but does not stop. “I didn’t know until a few months ago…” 

“And that is your own fault.” Salem insists. “If I had known--”

“I’m sorry!” Tyrian gasps, bringing his hands to his mouth. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! I can make it up to you, I promise, I--!”

Salem suddenly pushes him, a cold hand pressed against his bandaged chest to keep him in place. He winces at the pain, and as he blinks, she is so close to him that he can feel her icy breath against his skin. Her hair curtains them on either side, blocking out the world and leaving him in a wonderful white void with only her beauty.

“And this is your chance.” Her voice is soft now, almost sultry, and Tyrian realizes her other hand is against his thigh, black-lacquered claws trailing along the soft flesh between his legs. She inches his sleep shorts upward and he shivers, bites his lip to keep from making a noise. He’s shaking. It must be the temperature.

“I want to show you how wonderful it would feel if you were to change your mind.” Salem whispers, slowly growing closer. Tyrian’s eyes dart between her approaching face and the faint shadow of her traveling hand. Her lips touch his and her fingers curl inward and the world falls away.

It’s never felt like this before. It’s never been soft touches and light gasps. Tyrian’s tail thrashes about and Salem grabs it at one point, pinning it to the mattress and rubbing her thumb against the softer carapace where it connects to his spine and he nearly shouts at the feeling it sends shooting through his body. 

She hums to him as she touches him. Whispers praises and reminders that only little girls get to feel this wonderful all the time. He almost doesn’t hear her over his own moaning. Almost.

“You should be honored,” she says, and a warmth begins to pool in Tyrian’s belly. “To be touched by a goddess like this…” His eyes go cross and a sharp gasp is practically ripped from his throat. “...is a gift no one can stake claim to…” His cry is choked, hissed out through jagged teeth as he screws his eyes shut and moans. Salem smirks before continuing; she wonders if poor Arthur heard. 

“...but you.”

She holds him then, and Tyrian is almost in tears at his baptism. She curls her fingers through his hair and kisses him and tells him she’ll let him think about her little lesson. Tyrian is sure that he’ll wake to find his curls at his shoulders and a far prettier girl beneath them.

When he does wake and he sees his tired face beneath his wiry hair, he roars in fury. The boy runs to his closet in a rage, claws grabbing at every silk, every lace, every flower he can find, throwing them all into the center of his room as he babbles to himself.

Arthur hears it as he passes the boy’s room, on his way to his office before he was stopped dead in his tracks. He opens Tyrian’s door slowly and then rushes in, grabbing the boy underneath his shoulders to yank him away from the mess. He’s tearing at cloth and flesh and hair, tears running down his cheeks as he roars, “--I’D BE BETTER OFF DEAD!”

“Tyrian!” Arthur pleads, trying his hardest to wrangle the poor thing as he’s pushed into the wall.

“You would be.” Cinder hisses from the doorway. “It’d be one less mouth to feed. Mother would be much happier without you here--”

“Cinder, if you don’t leave, I will make sure you regret it.” Arthur hisses, clamping a hand over Tyrian’s mouth to stop him from screaming louder at his sister’s--oh, that’s right.--words. Cinder scoffs and rolls her eyes, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she continues on down the hall, her heels clicking furiously as she goes.

Arthur groans and slowly makes his way to Tyrian’s bed, setting the boy down with a sigh. Defeated, Tyrian sits, still sniffling and biting back sobs as he stares at the pile of torn fabric in the center of his room. Arthur sighs and crouches in front of him, offering a small smile as he does.

“I know it’s hard,” he says gently, reaching for Tyrian’s arms to inspect the scratches. Nothing serious; his aura should manage it. “I felt the same when I figured myself out. My parents were furious with me.” He goes for Tyrian’s hair now, pushing the twisting curls away from his face to tuck them behind pierced ears. “My father actually hit me for it.” he adds. “But you are so lucky, Tyrian. To be with those who understand. Cinder may act a brat about it, but she’s not angry at you for this. And neither is Salem.”

He hesitates for a moment, and then presses a short kiss to the center of Tyrian’s forehead. “I’m quite proud of you.”

Something flutters. Tyrian thinks of the night before, how Salem had kissed him and his stomach did flips. But Arthur does it and it feels so different. Why did Salem’s kiss feel… wrong? He would never dare to tell her such a thing, but where the flips from her kiss were heavy and nervous, these are more like happy bounces. He looks up at Arthur with flushed cheeks and swallows a lump in his throat.

“I…” He falters. “I don’t--I don’t have anything to wear now. Except this.” He looks to his sleep clothes, a pair of short black pants and a white tank top from Arthur’s medical cabinet. The doctor laughs and stands, hands on his hips. Tyrian lets out a soft breath at his laugh, deep and rumbling, a rare sound that makes his heart pound. 

“I suppose you and I will have to go out and find you something new to wear then, won’t we?” he says. Tyrian’s breath is shaky as he nods. “Very well then. We’ll leave today. I’ll find you some pants to wear and a coat and then we’ll be off.”

Arthur turns to leave (and Tyrian notes the flourish with which he moves, how smoothly his arms settle at his back, how the curve in which they sit makes the tails of his yellow dress shirt flare out just a bit, Tyrian can see why Arthur makes such a pretty girl when he is one) but stops in the doorway, looking over his shoulder at Tyrian to say, “Be sure to grab a snack from the kitchen before we leave. You haven’t had breakfast yet.”

The door closes and Tyrian feels a warmth roll across his body. He expects it to settle in his stomach like the night before, but instead it settles in his throat, like he might cry, but no tears follow.

What is happening?

**Author's Note:**

> translations: 
> 
> 1\. "Mama!" Tyrian cries out for his mother, who is dead.  
> 2\. "Where am I? Who are you?" He wasn't conscious to initially meet Arthur, and Salem is the only person in the castle he knows.  
> 3\. "It's okay. You're safe. My name is Arthur." The phonetic/English-typed Mandarin in comparison to the actual characters is due to the fact that Arthur is not perfectly fluent and is speaking a much more textbook version of Mandarin.  
> 4\. "Safe..." Tyrian is mesmerized by the concept.  
> 5\. Not quite a translation, but related: Salem is omniligual, and speaks every language at once. You will always understand her, no matter if you speak whatever language she may really be speaking at present, hence why Arthur processes her words in two different languages at once.
> 
> questions? comments? general stuff? i have a tumblr!
> 
> http://atlesianic.tumblr.com


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